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รูปและเรื่อง via art|4|d.com —>> # 165 Nov-09 : Eco-track

James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio+Renfro have transformed the abandoned rail line into an elevated urban park. Sorachai Kornkasem writes.

One of the design tricks that can be incorporated as an environmental friendly notion is to “reuse” – either repurpose or renovate from the existing. It doesn’t matter whether the NEW “item” will function as the original one did or become something totally brand new because it helps to reduce waste and not-create the use of any new materials. On June 9, 2009, in New York City, a new public park opened reconfiguring the High Line, an existing elevated freight train track, which seems to fit the sustainability bill quiet beautifully. Albeit the fact that the main project’s intention is nothing near to pursuing any green awards of any kind, however, the project itself succeeded the high hype.

The $152 million budget of the High Line was spent to transform an abandoned elevated train track to become a public park, of which the 1st phase stretches from Meat Packing district’s Gansevoort Street to West 20th Street of the 10th avenue in Chelsea district. It is apparent that the High Line is physically different from other public parks in the city. It may not be as enormous as the gigantic suspension Brooklyn Bridge or as vast and wild as Central Park, but it is bound to proudly stand as a valuable “item” for New York City for many more years to come.

Infrastructure for transportation of goods was commissioned way back in 1847 in the city of New York. After operating for a while, accidents on the tracks lead to many people loosing their lives, especially in the 10th Avenue area during 1851-1929. This avenue was once even referred to as “Dead Avenue.” The city then saw the need of cowboys who led in front to warn people of a coming train. However, after many debates and public hearings about the dangers the city agreed to commission another project, for the West Side Project, which included the elevated train in lieu of the existing street level one. That was when the original High Line project was created and built – in the 1930s. It officially started to run in 1934 and the High Line connected from West 34th Street to Spring Street at St. John’s Park Terminal. The main products carried were meat, milk and raw materials for every day usage of the people in the city.

The plan for the original High Line infrastructure was indigenous as it was designed to avoid conflicts of the inter-section of other elevated trains and the subway. Instead, it avoided the intersections by going though the city blocks and intended to transport goods directly to the building and warehouses 30 feet above the ground. So, these become odd industrial characteristics of the elevated track running like a snake through different buildings and through different districts. The last train was used to transport frozen turkeys in 1980; its operation ceased after only 50 years because of the increasing means of delivery by trucks that became more popular, and the track was abandoned and left to become an eyesore over the many years. A group of developers who owned the land along this train track tried to convince the city to tear it down altogether. However, Peter Obletz was the first to step up to protect it and pushed the city to reuse the High Line again – but there were no outcomes until much later.

The real public park project actually happened with the formation of the non-profit group, Friends of the High Line (FHL) founded by Joshua David and Robert Hammond in 1999. FHL initially wanted to protect the demolition plan under mayor Rudy Giuliani, and pushed hard to save the High Line and introduce a new use for it as a public park. It was mayor Mike Bloomberg’s government that agreed to work with FHL and helped support the project, while FHL worked hard with local communities, known celebrities and politicians to raise funds for the project.

The High Line indeed is not the first public park built on an abandoned train track. The 4.5 kilometers of the Promenade Plantée in Paris set the real precedent and was opened to the public in 1998. Even though it is not the first, the High Line became know as FHL began to promote to the public through the Idea Competition in 2003, which saw submissions from over 720 teams – all with stunning ideas. Once it was highly supported by the public, FHL and the city of New York started to select a professional team to lead the project by assessing over 50 qualified professionals to reach the last 4 teams, and then awarding the project to James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro teams.

“Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of the High Line, where nature has reclaimed a once-vital piece of urban infrastructure.” The design team strate-gized the idea by using ‘eco-tecture’ as a tool to combine organic and building materials into a blend of changing pro-portions. Also, to contrast the dynamic Hudson River Park existing in parallel down below, with one with feelings of more calm, slowness, and other-worldliness.

Working with the community and the city, through public hearings, the design team created a useful public park master plan that would become ‘the must visit’ spot in New York City. The design elements include the use of wild and native plants grown and discovered on site into the existing track, which require less maintenance in a long run. The many surprise pocket spaces created both to impress and to function for the park, include the famous sunbathing area on the existing train track that can be moved creating and accommodating different spaces for a group.

The talk of the town element has to be the sunken theater on the platform of 10th Avenue and 16th Street. The level down steps became seating benches, magnified at the end with clear glass panels that people can look through to the traffic underneath or to check out people walking by. This visual connection surprisingly creates a greater sense of community. Other design elements also seem to follow the sustainable factor, such as the use of FSC certified wood, designing lighting with LED (to not interfere with the neighbors), and using native plants. The project was also planned well during construction so as not to disturb the environment.

One of the major successes that should be exalted is the existing High Line itself. It offers such a narrative when one moves through. You can see the open views through to the river, the streets cross-section of the city, and unforeseen views of the city; also what is being protected underneath the buildings. This creates a phenomenon, because the original design created the infrastructure that served as an elevated service directly to the buildings and cut through the blocks that differed from the standard subway routes.

It is no surprise encountering unexpected vistas by walking through the park. We can experience the unfolding views of the Statue of Liberty in one direction and directly opposite, the Empire State building, as we have never seen before. Even the up-close building elements like cornices standing just in front of our eyes or the total shocking scale of the billboards that are usually seen from the street level, now can be touched as they are right out in front of you.

The improvement through this project of the High Line echoes many new possibilities to all districts it moves through. It brings and refreshes with new real estate development – office buildings, residential projects, fashion stores, restaurants and a new art gallery district that are all supported by this development even during the current economic downturn. One of the upcoming projects that could be added to this excitement is a new 185,00 square feet Whitney Museum space downtown, located at Gansevoort and anchored to the High Line with the main activity plaza for the neighborhood.

This is expected to be ready by 2012. Additionally, there is more to come in the form of other exciting projects once the second phase of the High Line in completed, which will continue from 20th Street to 34th Street of the Hell’s kitchen neighborhood, expected to open in 2010.

The ‘reuse’ notion is not bad after all, especially in the case of this public park project. Giving a once dead track a new lease of life and forcing new terms of use, they create such positive and infinite possibilities. The High Line may not be reused as its original infrastructure that transported goods feeding people in the city, but it sure does connect and trans-port new relationships among people, districts, business and all that we need. That is the real “sustainability” factor. []